Republican Governor Robert Bentley approved changes to Alabama’s immigration law a day after he said the measure was unacceptable because it requires the state to post online the names of illegal immigrants who are arrested…

Bentley threatened to reject the measure in a news conference yesterday. He also told reporters he wanted lawmakers to remove a provision of the original law requiring schools to check the citizenship status of students, and to get rid of the new provision about posting names online. Keeping those provisions would damage the state’s image, he said.

Particularly sweet:

Bentley had called a special session of the Legislature, starting yesterday, to revise the legislation. No lawmaker introduced the changes he was seeking.

“It became clear that the Legislature did not have the appetite for addressing further revisions at this time,” Bentley said in a statement today.

A tremendous effort had gone in to subvert the Governor into wimping out – apparently successfully:

A press release issued by the governor’s office… said that while Bentley sympathizes with concerns in Alabama about how much of a cost illegal immigration has on education, he does not want attempts to collect data to gauge the cost to violate constitutional rights.

Alabama even got the New York Times treatment:

Alabamians should see on Wednesday, the last day of the legislative session, just how badly the Republicans who control the Statehouse want to continue down the path of anti-immigrant extremism…